muchas cosas

Well…yesterday took some interesting twists and turns. I had a wonderful morning in which I slept under all my blankets and didn’t get out of bed till 6:30am. We are experiencing what they call a “friaje” in which it is cold, COLD for about a week. It has gotten down to 60 degrees!! I’ve been wearing a fleece, down jacket, mittens and sweatpants to battle the frigid environment. Once I did finally get out of bed I had breakfast with my wonderful tourists friends who have been so kind and fun to be around. Later, working in my lab, I was wrestling a glass tube into a rubber stopper and the darn thing broke. My thumb slipped forward onto the jagged piece of glass and sliced open. Note: this entry is not for the faint of heart (my Mom!) There was blood dripping immediately onto the floor and I grasped it with my other hand. Well, that was kind of silly because I then did not have a hand to work with that wasn’t covered blood. I managed to clean it out and slap some gauze on it with some tape… which bled through in about 3 minutes. I knew I was in a little over my head so I went to one of my tourist friends, Doctor Dave, to see if he could have a look at it. When he heard the story and saw the bandage his face lit up and he exclaimed, “I brought my suture kit!!!”. So he gave a good look at it and decided that steri-strips would not be sufficient at holding the wound together. He gave me two local anesthetic injections at the base of the thumb and then two stitches. It is the first time I have ever had stitches (strange but true) so I HAD to watch. The best part was that his amazing wife Deborah held my hand and sang me songs with the voice of an angel through the whole ordeal. My adopted mother for the time being since my own wonderful mother is nearly 9,000 miles away. Funny enough, I watched the whole thing, then as soon as it was over I started feeling very faint and nauseous. They told me my face turned a pale green color and I nearly passed out. Good times!! I am forever grateful for their caring kindness.

Another exciting event: these tracks pictured below were found less than 5 meters from where all us researchers sleep.

It wouldn’t have been a big deal if they were jaguar prints, since they rarely attack humans, but they were identified by one of the researchers as puma prints. Pumas are known to attack humans, especially if they are getting older and unable to catch quick-moving prey. Of course, I learned all of this after I returned to the station from a night hike to the river by myself. I was greeted with a stern, crossed arm welcome from my very dear friend Liz (also the manager here) because she thought someone had told me and I was just being reckless. Well, I won’t be doing that again!! I have a volunteer coming tonight so no more night hikes alone for me.

And now for some silly things… Here is a rather ironic photo of a failed rescue attempt. Sorry buddy..he’s gone.

And to wrap it up, here is a photo of the fuzziest moth I have ever seen in my whole life. I named him fuzzy face since I already named the tarantula ms. fuzzy butt.

That’s it for now! I’m off to sort through dead bugs and listen to Modest Mouse. Oh, what a life.